Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow is demanding a full review of the city’s winter maintenance operations, citing a “slow” and inadequate response to the back-to-back snowstorms that buried the city under more than 50 cm of snow earlier this month.
Despite city crews working around the clock to clear snow from streets and sidewalks, Chow is frustrated by reports that sidewalks were fully cleared when, in reality, many remain impassable.
“Last week, I was repeatedly told that 100 per cent of the sidewalks had been plowed,” Chow said at a news conference Tuesday morning. “I was told that this morning, I was told that last week on Friday—well, I’m sorry, it is not true. This is just unacceptable. We need to do more. We need to do better.”
Chow is bringing her concerns to the city’s next executive committee meeting on March 19, calling on City Manager Paul Johnson to conduct a full review of winter maintenance operations. Her requests include:
- A review of private winter maintenance contractors to determine whether they have met their contractual obligations.
- An investigation into the reported vs. actual snow-clearing progress, addressing discrepancies between city reports and residents’ experiences.
- An evaluation of how to improve snow-clearing operations, including renegotiating or breaking existing contracts if necessary.
Chow also wants the city’s auditor general to investigate the handling of the storm, ensuring that past recommendations were followed.
Toronto’s winter maintenance has been under scrutiny for years. A 2020 audit found the city could have saved $24 million over five years by renegotiating contractor standby payments and avoiding $7.1 million in overpayments for unperformed work.
In December 2021, city council awarded nearly $1.5 billion in winter maintenance contracts, with two companies and their joint venture securing 88 per cent of the total contract value. Five other suppliers later filed disputes.
By 2022, the city introduced GPS tracking, performance metrics, and dashcam footage to monitor contractors. However, a 2023 audit revealed that out of 26 recommendations to improve oversight, only 10 had been fully implemented, despite city claims that 18 had been addressed.
General Government Committee Chair Coun. Paul Ainslie expressed frustration over the seven-year contract approved in 2021, saying he had serious doubts from the beginning.
“I couldn’t understand how this was going to be achieved,” Ainslie said Tuesday, adding that industry experts warned of major issues, including a lack of properly sized vehicles.
“There was going to be a raft of issues, from not getting the snow cleared properly because we wouldn’t have the right-sized vehicles—if we had the proper vehicles at all.”
Ainslie pledged to hold city staff and contractors accountable to ensure Torontonians get the services they pay for.
With ongoing concerns over snow removal contracts and taxpayer dollars, Chow is pushing for urgent reforms ahead of future winter storms. The issue will be formally addressed at the March 19 executive committee meeting.
For now, many residents—particularly seniors, those with mobility challenges, and parents with strollers—are left navigating unplowed sidewalks, waiting for the city to finally catch up.